Is it safe to exercise while wearing your face mask?

Today, I'm going to talk to you about exercising with a mask on. Should you do it, and what should you look out for? Hi, I'm Bill, owner of beyondfitnessonline.com, where we think outside of the box to help you get out of pain and lose weight so that you can live the healthy, active lifestyle that you deserve. So today, I want to talk to you about exercising with a mask on. As the coronavirus continues to spread throughout America and the world, we are starting to see things open up. And as things are opening up, there's all kinds of different rules and regulations around that. And one of those that's very common is you have to wear a mask. So one of the questions I've been asked quite a bit is, should you be wearing a mask while you exercise? And there's a lot that goes into that, so I kind of wanted to touch upon that a little bit with you. There's some things you want to look out for. So if your area requires you to wear a mask at all times, even when you're exercising, then what you want to do is, one, make sure that the mask you're wearing covers all the appropriate areas, covers your nose and your chin, it's tight-fitting around here, but that you're still able to breathe comfortably. If you are standing around having a normal conversation and not exercising and you're having difficulty breathing with that, then that is not the mask that you want to be wearing while you exercise. Conversely, it does you no good to wear a mask that's really loose fitting like a bandana hanging over your face or anything like that. So if you have the mask on and you can breathe comfortably, great. If you cannot breathe comfortably, then what you probably need to do first is do some breathing exercises and start to strengthen that portion of your anatomy first. If you want more information on that, you can check out this video right here, and that'll start to get you into how to breathe properly. As you begin to breathe more properly, breathing in your mask will become easier. Now, there are some masks out there that have been around for years that claim to be high altitude training. The studies on those are very mixed, and whether or not they're actually effective, that's really undetermined at this point. However, those give you an idea of what it's like to breathe with a little bit of restriction. So if you've used those in the past and you're okay with those, you'll be okay wearing a normal mask. Now the other thing is your mask, to be effective, needs to have multiple layers. So you want to make sure that that layer, that inner layer, is not sucking into your mouth. Every single time that you try to breathe in. If it is, you want to probably get yourself a new mask. Now, the next piece to this is if you sweat a lot, your mask is going to get wet. You also don't want your mask to get drenched while you're exercising. If that's you, it's a good idea to have 2 or 3 masks with you during your workout so that you can change them out as you go. You'll want to keep them clean because that can also, depending on what kind of dirtiness you get on that mask, could influence your breathing down the road as well. The other piece to this is how intense should your exercise be while you're wearing a mask? And that's where you're really going to want to look out for how you're feeling. Lightheaded and dizziness and those sorts of things can be symptoms of a lot of different problems. But also can be a symptom of you're not breathing properly and you're having a hard time breathing through the mask. So if you're not feeling right, you'll want to slow down your workout or maybe even step into a place where you can take the mask off and breathe and see if, if you start to come back to normal. Now, with that said, it is important to understand that your intensity of your exercise will probably be reduced to what it normally is. when you're wearing a mask. Again, with a restriction of breathing and not as much oxygen flowing through the body, things are going to be a little more difficult. So don't be discouraged if you find that you're not as strong or as efficient with your exercises as you've been in the past. I hope this is helpful. If you have any questions, please leave them below. I'd be happy to answer those. If you haven't already, please go ahead and subscribe here. And until next time, live healthy.